Avid Technology has chosen the current time frame still several weeks out from the NAB Show (April 20–23) to unveil its new HD news package geared to local broadcasters currently making the transition to local news, weather and sports.

Avid’s new and upgraded offerings are designed to give stations (and groups) more cost-effective means to acquire, edit and manage content via Sony’s XDCAM HD scheme (LongGoP HD MPEG2) , with efficiencies in time-savings, storage abilities and bandwidth usage.

The Avid HD News kit consists of the new AirSpeed Multi Stream production server (Version 1.0), an updated version of editing software (NewsCutter 7.5), and its production asset management system (Avid Interplay 1.6).

Avid said by offering native support for the Sony XDCAM HD system across its news package, it’s thereby removing unnecessary transcode processes and enabling better workflow with a quality HD codec.

Read all of HD Notebook here.